


No Ron, He Didn't Poison Me

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drarry, Fluff, Hogwarts Eighth Year, M/M, post second war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 10:28:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9487226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: An eighth year drarry oneshot where Draco grows up deprived of affection of any sort and where Harry decides that no one deserves the life that Draco has.





	

As a child, Draco Malfoy grew up in a very strict household. He never received any affection from his parents past the age of three. Showing emotion was not a Malfoy trait and affection was a way to do so. His father, Lucius, had always scolded him whenever he tried to hug him, even as a toddler.

When Draco was eleven and received his Hogwarts letter there was no celebration. The only acknowledgment his parents gave him was a mere nod and instructions to meet them in the hall at 7 o'clock sharp the next day to go shopping for his school supplies.

Upon Draco's arrival to Hogwarts, he was fully trained all through his childhood to keep up an emotionless façade. After being sorted into Slytherin, he met some new people but mainly stuck with his, of course pureblood, friends from before Hogwarts. Most of them had been raised in a similar way to him with pureblood views and rich families but they had all been doted on. They gave their parents' an overly long hug when they left for the Hogwarts express, they poured out their hearts in letters about every event in their life in their letters home and would receive an equally heart felt reply.

For their first year, Pansy Parkinson, a pureblood whom had been Draco's friend since they were born, constantly latched onto Draco's arm and absentmindedly touched him. After Draco's many outbursts about it, she, along with everyone else, learned that you absolutely should not touch Draco Malfoy unless you wanted to be the target for his fury.

From day one, when Draco had offered his hand in friendship and been denied, Harry Potter and him were arch enemies, known to the entire school. Every day, without fail, Draco and Harry would end up in some sort of fight.

Draco would shove past Harry roughly in corridors, he would knock into him to make him ruin his potion and, during quidditch matches they were quite literally, neck to neck as Draco pushed against Potter as they both fought to veer the other off course in pursuit of the snitch.

Draco's friends had always noticed this. They knew very well (most from first-hand experience) how much Draco hated contact, loving or violent. Harry Potter seemed to be the exception to this pet peeve of his though. The only other person who had noticed was of course Hermione Granger. Both Slytherins and Gryffindor alike always smirked when they saw the two boys in yet another feud that included touching. Among the Slytherins, many bets had been made and set in place for years on when the two would get together.

All of this seemed to fade away as the war drew nearer and practically everything was forgotten after the war as the mourning of the dead deemed itself more prominent in every one's minds.

There were only a small few who returned to Hogwarts for their eighth year. Most of which were Ravenclaws wanting to continue their education for one more year. There were a few Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors but the house with the least amount was Slytherin.

House rivalry was gone with everyone tired of what the wizarding world had been for the last few years and finally just wanted a break from the chaos with no petty grudges to keep them up into the night.

With the small amount of students and this new development of interhouse unity, the eighth years were all put into one common room with two dormitories per house.

Draco Malfoy was not very fond of this idea at first. He had planned to spend his last year at Hogwarts entirely by himself, expecting to be able to just hide in the Slytherin common room, away from everyone's prejudice. Draco was still a Malfoy and he had been very involved in the wrong side of the war, no matter how much he didn't want to. This joined common room made sticking to himself a tad harder.

Draco had only ever had a few friends in Slytherin and now with them either gone, dead or a death eater he had no one. If people thought that he had no emotions before then they certainly hadn't met Draco now.

Of course, this was wrong. Draco was even more broken than ever. No matter how much he hated them now, he still had lost all of his parents and friends; the only people he was ever around all hated him and had no problem showing it, even the teachers.

The only person that didn't ignore or make rude remarks to him, Draco had noticed, was Harry Potter. This baffled him. Based on everyone else, Potter was basically the closest thing he had to a friend, even with how far from a friend he was.

Harry Potter had noticed Draco always sitting alone and suffering torments every day since the year started. What was worse was the look on his face. Draco looked as if he agreed with everyone throwing insults at him; as if he thought he deserved it.

This wasn't right, thought Harry. Draco – no, no one – deserved to be hated this much and by every single person. Harry understood why they did but couldn't grasp just how immature they were acting, holding grudges and judging him without even knowing a bit of the full story. Although that was probably the reason they did hate him.

None of them had been there the night Draco was meant to kill Dumbledore. They hadn't seen the look in his eyes, how he so wanted not to have to do it. Harry had. Draco was just another victim in this war trapped by prejudices and expectations.

So at the start of the year Harry had made a resolution to be nice to his former enemy. He couldn't bare to see Draco like that, looking so lonely and broken. It made Harry's stomach lurch.

It was on a school night in the common room when Draco was doing some last minute revising for an exam when Harry walked in.

Draco hadn't expected him to stay. There was no one else in the common room so why would he?

But then he sat down next to him. "Draco." Harry greeted.

The blond froze for a millisecond before responding. "You used my first name."

Harry just nodded and pulled out his homework and beginning on an essay as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

Draco was a just a bit more than a little confused. "Why?"

Harry paused his essay. "Do you want me to use your last name then?"

"No."

Harry hummed and continued his homework. He didn't seem to be making any move to speak anymore and so Draco continued on studying. Or at least tried to.

He kept thinking. Potter, well Harry, was just casually sitting next to him. Which wasn't a bad thing. He just desperately hoped it wasn't part of some sort of scheme to humiliate him. Or pity.

The next night Draco was again in the common room studying. He didn't really need to but he kind of hoped that Harry would return. He needed to know why Harry would choose to spend his time with him.

"Hi." Said Harry as he sat next to him and continued on the same essay from yesterday.

"I, uh...Harry?" Draco asked questioningly, tentative about Harry's reaction about using his first name.

"Yeah?"

"Why are you here?"

Harry looked up at the boy sitting next to him. There was something different in his eyes than usual. A mixture of nervousness and maybe...hope? "You look like you needed a friend."

Draco gulped. Was it really that obvious? Also, why would the saviour of the war be wasting his time on someone who pretty much helped plan his death. It didn't make sense. Draco was weak. If he befriended Harry, it was inevitable that Harry would eventually leave. He couldn't lose anyone else he cared about. So he would not care about Harry.

He looked into green eyes. They looked genuine, caring, sympathetic. "Don't." Draco heard his own voice crack as tears threatened to come.

He got up to leave but Harry grabbed onto his wrist. "Don't what, Draco? Don't lie to me and say you're fine because you're not. I can see that."

Draco shoved his wrist away from Harry causing him to lose his grip. "Don't pretend to care. After all these years of rivalry and now you're- you're looking at me with that look as if you're worried about me or something and I just- I can't, Harry. Don't you understand?" Draco let out a sound that sounded horribly like a sob as he struggled to hold back tears through his speech.

Harry felt his heart shatter. He thought he was pretending. He thought he didn't care.

Wordlessly, Harry got up and walked the short distance to the edge of the common room where Draco had gone. He pulled him into a hug and felt the boy dissolve. Sobs racked the blond's body as he gripped tight to Harry's shirt. Harry felt tears threaten to fall from his own eyes but he wouldn't cry. Not tonight. He would be strong, for Draco.

Draco's family was gone. His friends were gone. Everything he ever loved was gone and yet here he was crying into Harry Potter's arms, the last one he cared about.

Years of hidden pain and emotions flooded out of Draco as tears soaked into the other boy's shirt. He held on as if it was his life line, trying to make up for all of the contact he never got.

And he fell asleep.

Harry looked down at the broken boy in his arms. He always thought he had it worse in the war. The greatest dark wizard set out to kill him. But he was wrong. Everyone suffered in different ways, some leaving with more permanent scars than others.

But that was the thing, nearly everyone had scars; patterns covering their arm, words etched onto their hand, a lightning bolt on your forehead. They would all fade eventually with just a white mark remaining at most. But some people's scars were invisible. The ones easy to hide and would only get worse the longer no one knew about them.

Harry carried Draco over to the couch. He didn't know where his dormitory was and Ron would only freak out and make it worse if he found him in his. He pulled the blanket over him and got up to walk to his own bed.

"Stay. Please." Draco outstretched an arm in the vague direction of Harry. He still had his eyes closed with dry tears covering his face.

"Okay." Harry walked over and layed down next to Draco on the couch. He wrapped his arms around his waist and snuggly fit his head into the crook of his neck. "Are you sure? Someone might see in the morning?"

Draco, mostly asleep, just let out a mumbled, "Fuck them."

Both boys promptly passed out in exhaustion.

The next morning Hermione Granger woke up early so she could finish her book before classes started. She walked into the common room and saw the two boys tangled together and sleeping soundly.

Harry had told her and Ron about his nightmares, how he saw everyone dying all over again, and how he hadn't had a night without one in months. He was finally sleeping peacefully and so she would not wake him.

An hour later, people began to stream into the common room on their way down to breakfast. Many shot strange looks to the sight on the couch but Hermione made sure that they were not woken.

Ron eventually padded down the stairs, still in his pj's and spotted Hermione. "Hey have you seen Harry, 'Mione? He wasn't in his bed last night?" It was at that moment that he noticed the previously arch enemies sleeping on the couch. Ron's eyes shot back and forth from Hermione to his best friend with his arms wrapped around Malfoy! "WHAT!?"

"Shh! You'll wake them!"

"WAKE THEM? HARRY IS SLEEPING THAT FERRET! WE HAVE TO WAKE THEM!"

Hermione was about to protest again but there was a thump as Harry fell off the couch and immediately woke up.

"Huh?" He said sleepily. Harry looked around and saw Ron staring at him, fuming, Hermione looking over sympathetically, and Draco still in the process of waking up.

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO HARRY?" Ron demanded marching over to Malfoy. Draco awoke immediately and yelped as he scurried off the couch in order to avoid Ron.

"What are you talking about, Weasel?" He retorted after composing himself.

Ron was about to shout again before Hermione butted in. "Ron, you idiot. He hasn't done anything to Harry. Harry is fine, aren't you?"

"I, uh, yeah?" Harry was still slightly confused as to what was going on.

"Now Ron," began Hermione. "Why don't you go get breakfast and then we can discuss what's going on because you're clearly oblivious and can't see so for yourself."

Hermione dragged him off to the great hall and Harry shot her a grateful smile. He turned back to Draco to find him no longer standing where he was two seconds ago. "Draco?"

He heard a muffled reply coming from one of the dormitories and so he assumed he was getting dressed or something.

Half an hour later Draco, Harry, Ron and Hermione were all skipping their first class to talk in the common room. The act of Hermione wagging school determined that this was going to be an important discussion.

Draco looked around the group, quite amused. The weasel seemed to be struggling to figure out what he thought about the whole situation and so decided to settle on glaring at him, Granger was trying to get Ron to calm down and Harry was almost falling asleep.

"Okay. So, uh, Ron. You obviously have some questions for Harry. Go on." Hermione decided to take charge of the situation seeing as nobody else was making any move to say a word.

"How did Malfoy poison you?" Asked Ron, most of his anger gone.

"Do you really think I'm daft enough to poison the 'golden boy' after all that's happened, especially in the common room where anyone could find him? And what kind of poison includes falling asleep on a couch with the one that poisoned you?"

"I didn't ask you, Ferret." Snapped Ron.

"Ron! You agreed to be civil! Harry, why don't you just tell us what's going on? It does look very suspicious when you've been fighting for all these years and suddenly you're snuggled into Malfoy's chest."

Harry blushed at the end of the sentence and tried to avoid Ron's gaze. "Well, uh. I was doing homework and talking to Draco and then we fell asleep." Harry wasn't sure whether or not Draco would want him to reveal the entire truth. If it was him, he wouldn't've.

"You just fell asleep? Together? HOW?" Ron wasn't satisfied with Harry's vague answer.

"I was fucking crying, okay? He comforted me and then we fell asleep. That's all. Happy?" Draco spat the words like venom towards the red head.

Ron froze at the confession and just nodded slowly. After a few minutes silence he finally spoke. "So, are you too, like, uh, y'know?"

"RON! You can't just ask someone that!" Exclaimed Hermione.

"I meant _dating_ , 'Mione. Not, _that_. So?" Ron addressed the last part to the two boys on the couch opposite him.

Harry paled. Were they? He wouldn't be opposed to it. He did kind of like Draco. "I, uh, I dunno." He rushed out.

Draco turned towards him, suddenly seeming very shy, nothing like his normal Malfoy exterior. "Do you want to?" He asked quietly so that only Harry could hear.

Harry's brain was in a frenzy. He had always hated Draco, ever since day one. And yet this year things had changed, a lot. This was practically a 180◦ to hating each other. But the more he thought about it the more he liked the idea.

Harry grinned and nodded causing Draco to match his expression.

"Yeah, we are I guess." Harry said to Ron.

Draco pulled Harry's face back towards him and before he had time to react, kissed him right on the mouth.

If Ron was in shock before then right now, he was practically dead. Hermione smiled widely at the two before dragging Ron off to class to give them privacy.

Draco finally pulled away to breathe and stared right into Harry's eyes. "You aren't pretending right? This isn't pity?"

Harry leaned forward to kiss him again. When he pulled away he smiled up at the boy before him. "Not at all."


End file.
